Marcos Flees, Aquino Rules

Peaceful Revolt Ends In Triumph

February 26, 1986|By Joseph A. Reaves, Chicago Tribune.

MANILA — Corazon Aquino, widow of a martyr and now the hero of her nation, Wednesday began the daunting task of trying to fulfill the hopes of millions of courageous people who brought her to power in a remarkably nonviolent revolution.

Aquino, 53, moved swiftly to take control of a splintered Philippine government after Ferdinand E. Marcos, the country`s president for the last 20 years, abdicated and fled into exile on a U.S. Air Force jet.

``The long agony is over,`` the new president told her nation in a brief, pre-dawn televised address. ``We are finally free, and we can be truly proud of the unprecedented way we achieved our freedom--with courage and

determination and, most important, in peace.``

Marcos, his family and closest friends left the Malacanang presidential palace Tuesday night aboard a pair of U.S. helicopters, which sped them off to Clark Air Base, 50 miles north of Manila.

There the fallen president, his wife Imelda and former armed forces chief of staff Fabian Ver and Ver`s wife boarded a C-9 transport jet with Red Cross markings and flew to the American Pacific island of Guam. Fifty others followed in a second U.S. plane.

Marcos, 68, who is believed to suffer from serious kidney problems and other ailments, was carried aboard the craft on a stretcher but walked off unaided on Guam. He was to get treatment at a U.S. Navy hospital there.

In Washington, a Reagan administration spokesman said that Marcos` final destination was unknown. But the acting governor of Guam, Edward Reyes, said Marcos would leave for Hawaii in less than 24 hours.

Earlier Secretary of State George Shultz had said that the longtime American ally could find ``safe haven`` in the United States if he wished.

Aquino, the widow of martyred opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., came to power after a swift and largely peaceful rebellion that began Saturday with the defections of two of Marcos` top military aides--Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel Ramos, the deputy armed forces chief of staff.

Only 16 people died during the four-day upheaval, in which hundreds of thousands of Filipinos placed themselves in the line of fire to protect Enrile, Ramos and other military defectors from retaliation by troops loyal to the dying regime.

``People power,`` the term used by Aquino to describe the outpouring of support for her candidacy during an emotional 57-day presidential campaign against Marcos, transformed her into a viable politician during the days leading up to Marcos` flight. Heeding a call from Roman Catholic Church officials, huge crowds formed human barricades in front of government tanks and around military camps and television stations occupied by the steadily growing rebel forces.

Troops loyal to Marcos, if they wished to support the increasingly beleaguered despot, were faced with the need to massacre large numbers of their countrymen. Most of the soldiers elected not to shoot, which made Marcos` downfall inevitable.

Until the defections of Enrile and Ramos, Marcos had seemed certain to serve at least a part of the new six-year term he insisted he had won in widely condemned, fraud-ridden election on Feb. 7.

He was sworn in for the new term Tuesday morning, but his tenure in office lasted only 9 hours--during which the Philippines, in effect, had two presidents. Just hours before Marcos took his oath at the presidential palace, Aquino had declared a provisional government in effect, and had taken a presidential oath at the Club Filipino as military helicopters flew overhead. At the time, Aquino`s action seemed more a gesture of bravado than an accession to real power. But events quickly handed her and her supporters control of the country.

When word spread Tuesday night that Marcos had slipped into exile, Manila erupted in jubilation. Tens of thousands of ecstatic Aquino supporters took to the streets, celebrating wildly in front of the presidential palace that had come to symbolize the aloofness and corruption of the Marcos regime.

Despite the vital role of the crowds in the streets in bringing about Marcos` ouster, Aquino`s rise to power was only made possible after Washington applied strong pressure on Marcos not to try to quash the rebellion with violence.

Marcos, who was first elected president of the Philippines in 1965 and who four years later became the first president of this country to win re-election, was a favorite ally of successive U.S. presidents for nearly all of his 20 years in power, even after he imposed martial law in 1971, citing threats to democracy from Islamic insurgents and communists.